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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap... Copyright No... 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE CHILD, THE WISE MAN, 
AND THE DEVIL 



THE CHILD, THE WISE MAN, 
AND THE DEVIL 



COULSON "KERNAHAN 
A' 

AUTHOR OF 

'god and the ant," "sorrow and song," "a book 

OF STRANGE SINS," *' A DEAD MAN'S DIARY," 

''captain shannon" etc. 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1896 



h-LUO 






"i' 



%'' 






Copyright, 1896, 
By Dodd, Mead and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 

I 



k 



TO THE TWO 

WHO HAVE TAUGHT ME MOST: 

MY WHITE-HAIRED AND EVER-LOVED FATHER, 

AND 

MY GOLDExN-HEADED, TWELVEMONTH-OLD 

DAUGHTER AND DARLING, 

BERYL. 



" Thrums," 
South-end-on-Sea, 

England, Sept. j, i8g6. 



PROEM 

T DREAMT that I stood within 

^ the walls of a great city. Under 
the deep dense blue of an Italian 
sky, innumerable towers, domes, 
temples, and palaces glittered and 
whitened — like head-stones bleach- 
ing in a cemetery — in the morning 
sunshine, and in the centre rose the 
cross-crowned cupola of a huge cathe- 
dral. And in the streets and squares 
of the city I beheld the vastest con- 
course which the eye of man hath 



6 Proem 

ever witnessed. People of every 
race and every nation swarmed, ant- 
like, in the houses and streets ; and 
when I looked beyond the city's 
limits, I saw that the country for 
many miles around was thick with 
tents and paviHons, so that it seemed 
as if the place had become, as it were, 
the camping-ground of nations. 

Then, turning to one who stood 
near me, I said, " Surely this is 
Rome, the Eternal City ? " 

And he made answer, " It is." 

" And yonder church," I said, " is 
it not the church of St. Peter ? " 

" It hath so been called of old," 
he responded, " but it is called so 
now no longer." 



Proem 7 

" What call they it, then ? " I 
asked. 

"The Church of the One God," 
rephed the man. 

Then said I, " Tell me, I pray 
thee, why the name hath been so 
changed, and what means this multi- 
tude, for I am but newly arrived in 
the city.'' 

And, looking at me curiously, the 
man made answer, " Whence come 
ye, that ye know not that they have 
found the body of the Christ ? " 

Then said I : " Nay, but that 
were impossible, for we know that 
our Saviour Christ was crucified and 
buried ; and that He rose again the 
third day, according to the Scripture, 



8 Proem 

and ascended into heaven, where He 
sitteth on the right hand of the 
Father/' 

But he answered me sternly, " It 
is true that the man whom thou 
callest the Saviour Christ did claim 
for Himself, that He, being equal 
with God, was not subject unto death, 
but would rise again the third day. 
And it is true, too, that because His 
body was not found His disciples 
gave out that He had so risen and 
ascended. Wherefore Him the world 
has most idolatrously worshipped, 
according unto a mortal the glory 
which belongeth only unto God. 
Which idolatry God hath for nine- 
teen hundred years endured patiently. 



Proem 9 

visiting not their evil-doings upon the 
heads of the idolaters, but waiting 
until, in the fulness of time, He 
might put to scorn the pretensions of 
the crucified Nazarene, and make 
manifest the abundance of God's 
mercy and the magnitude of man's 
sinning. 

" For know ye that they have found 
in Palestine, in the rock-hewn sepul- 
chre whither it was borne, nineteen 
hundred years ago, by Joseph of 
Arimathea, the body of Him who 
claimed that death had no dominion 
over Him." 

Then said I, "And hath any for 
this reason forsaken Christ ? " 

And he made answer, " Thou 



lo Proem 

seest how many people are here 
gathered together ? Thinkest thou 
it is in the power of any man to 
number them ? " 

" As well might one seek to num- 
ber the sands on the seashore/' I 
replied. 

Then said he, " Thou speakest 
truly. Here for the first time the 
monarchs of every nation which hath 
held the Christian faith are, with 
their courts and councils, their lords 
spiritual and temporal, gathered to- 
gether. Know ye why they are 
met ? " 

" I know not," I answered. 

Then said he, " They are here to 
make solemn confession on their own 



Proem 1 1 

behalf, and on behalf of the people 
over whom they rule, of the iniquity 
of which they and their forefathers 
have been guilty, in that they have 
bowed the knee to a mortal, worship- 
ping as God of God, Light of Light, 
Very God of Very God, one who was 
of flesh and blood, and subject unto 
death, as we all are. . They are met 
to make public and solemn Renunci- 
ation of their error. To-day, at noon, 
in yonder church, and in every church 
throughout the world where Christ has 
been worshipped as God, Christ shall 
be renounced and proclaimed man, 
the symbols of the Trinity and of the 
Cross shall be cast down and de- 
stroyed, that thereby all men may 



1 2 Proem 

know that God is not Three but 
One. If thou wilt thou shah come 
with me to yonder cathedral where I 
will show thee this great ceremony 
that thou mayest believe for thyself 
that Jesus of Nazareth was an 
impostor." 

But I made answer : " Though thou 
show me this, and more ; though, like 
Thomas, I behold the wounds in the 
hands and feet, and thrust my finger 
into the pierced side, yet would I not 
beheve that Jesus, my Lord and 
Master, was an impostor, for I know 
in Whom I have trusted. Rather 
would I beheve that this thing of 
which thou speakest is one of those 
wiles of Satan of which we have been 



Proem 13 

warned in Holy Writ, — how that in 
the latter days there should arise ^ false 
prophets,' whose ^ coming is after the 
working of Satan with all power and 
signs and lying wonders,' that they 
who serve not the truth should 
^ believe a lie/ " 

Then said the man, " 'T is childish 
to refuse to believe the evidence of 
one's senses, — as childish as it is 
to be satisfied with so outworn a 
creed as thine." 

" Were I to judge by sense," I 
made answer, " I should believe that 
I see the sun at a moment when he 
is actually below the horizon, and 
when I know that it is but his re- 
flected image, and not himself, which 



14 Proem 

I see. And to be satisfied with the 
Christian faith may be childHke, but 
is not childish ; for though the child 
may find in it all he needs, yet many 
of the wisest of this world have con- 
fessed that the longer they have 
pondered it, the closer they have 
studied it, the more cause have they 
found for wonder, for worship, and 
for love. The great minds of the 
world — the Shakespeares and Mil- 
tons of the race — are on our side, 
not yours, and for the very reason 
that they were great, for the reason 
that they were wise, and did not 
merely think themselves so. It is 
true that ours is the simplest of 
all faiths. It must needs be so, since 



Proem 1 5 

it appeals alike to rich and to poor, 
to the young and to the old, to the 
sick and to the strong, and not less to 
the sempstress in her garret, who, 
when she lays down the work at 
which she has been toiling early and 
late, is too weary-eyed and worn to 
take up a book, or even to think, 
than to the woman of fashion, or to the 
man of leisure who has devoted his 
life to the search for knowledge. 
Were it not so, the strength of its 
appeal would be exactly proportionate 
to the intellectual capacity of the 
individual, and half humanity — the 
half which needs Him most — would 
be left without the help and hope 
which are given freely to all by the 



1 6 Proem 

Great Consoler, Christ. And yet, for 
all its simplicity, I believe that could 
we stand with God at the centre of all 
things, we should see that the one 
supreme and controlling law — the 
pivot upon which the laws of this 
and all other universes turn — is the 
law of vicarious sacrifice — the law 
which had ordained, ere the founda- 
tions of the world were laid, that the 
sins of the world should be laid upon 
God's Son, the Sinless Christ." 

Then said the man, derisively, 
" He whom thou callest the Son of 
God was but a bastard — the child of 
Mary, mis-called the Virgin, and her 
lover Joseph the Carpenter." 

" Surely thou hast no child of 



Proem 17 

thine own," I made answer, "that 
thou canst so speak of Him who 
consecrated childhood forever by 
His own Divine Childhood — who 
consecrated it afresh, with a higher, 
holier meaning, when, in His Divine 
Manhood, he uttered those words, 
which to the ears of every mother of 
to-day are as full of sweet music as 
ever they were to the mothers of 
Palestine : ' Suffer the little children 
to come unto Me, and forbid them 
not, for of such is the Kingdom of 
Heaven.' " 

Then said the man, "All this is 
nothing to me who have neither wife 
nor child/' 

" That I can well believe," I 



1 8 Proem 

answered ; " for surely no father, no 
mother, — whether the Httle one 
were on earth or in heaven, — could 
hear the sv/eet music of those words 
unmoved. That picture of the little 
child nestling as naturally, as trust- 
fully, in Our Saviour's arms as in the 
arms of her mother, and smiling up 
with perfect love, perfect confidence, 
into the face which looked down 
upon hers with Divine tenderness. 
Divine Fatherliness — though for 
His ears no child lips might ever 
lisp the wonderful word ^ Father ' — 
has consecrated all children to the 
Christ and the Christ to every child. 
It must remain for all time the one 
picture of spotless purity upon which 



Proem 1 9 

human eyes have looked^ the inter- 
change of loving smiles between the 
innocent child and the Sinless Man. 
So long as that picture is guarded in 
the heart of one mother, so long 
canst thou never hope to destroy 
Christianity. That little child in the 
arms of Jesus has struck deadlier 
blows at the enemies of the Cross 
than all the arguments of all the 
theologians. That child is the most 
powerful foe whom the armies of in- 
fidelity have to fear." 

As if the heavens had thundered 
"Amen" to the words I had spoken, 
there came the sudden roll of cannon. 

" ' Tis the signal for the procession 
to start," said my companion, and 



20 Proem 

over that great assembly there passed 
a tremor of expectancy, Hke the stir- 
ring of leaves when rain is nigh. 

Afar off we heard a vibrating hum 
— like the droning of insects on 
a sunny summer's noon — which 
moved me strangely, for I knew it 
for the distant voice of a mighty 
multitude. Sometimes it died away, 
as the chiming of bells dies away 
when the wind falls, and then it 
swelled again until the hum was as 
the murmur of an incoming tide, and 
soon it was like the roar of breakers 
upon the shore, so that we could 
hear the clash of music and the cheers 
rippling along the lines like volleying 
bells. 



Proem 2 1 

And then, slow-moving to stately 
music, there came into view a proces- 
sion of supreme splendour. Monarch 
after monarch — Kaiser and Czar, 
Emperors, Kings, and Queens, ar- 
rayed in royal robes, and surrounded 
by their courts and councillors, 
passed by in state on their way to 
the cathedral. And as sovereign 
succeeded to sovereign, pageant to 
pageant, there went up from that 
vast assembly such thunder of ap- 
plause that the thread of my dream 
was broken, and the scene shifted as 
it were by magic, and in a moment. 
I was no longer in the streets, where 
all Rome was ringing with the riot- 
ous uproar, but kneeUng — one of 



22 Proem 

innummerable thousands — in the 
great cathedral. The rolhng as of 
thunder was still in my ears^ but I 
knew it now for the rolling of the 
organ which sank and sank, until it 
was lost in listening silence, out of 
which arose the voice of one leading 
the people in prayer. 

^' Almighty and most merciful Father, 
the One God of Heaven and Earth and 
Judge of all men, we confess and bewail 
the grievous and idolatrous sin of which we 
and our fathers before us have been guiltv. 
We do most earnestiv repent and humbly 
beseech that Thou wilt grant us Thv for- 
giveness, and keep us evermore in Thy 
fear. Who livest and reignest One God 
evermore. Amen." 

Then, while the great congregation 



Proem 23 

remained kneeling, the kings and 
rulers arose, one by one, and, divest- 
ing themselves of their royal robes, 
walked with bowed heads, and knelt 
in sight of all before the altar that 
they might make solemn intercession, 
on their own behalf, and on behalf of 
their people, for the idolatry of which 
they had been guilty. 

And after they had so remained 
for some minutes, he who led the 
congregation in prayer turned to the 
kneeling multitude saying : " Do ye 
for evermore renounce the Deceiver, 
who, claiming that he had come to 
take away the sins of the world, hath 
laid upon the world the burden of 
nineteen hundred years' idolatry ? '* 



24 Proem 

And, as with one voice, kings and 
people made answer : — 

" We renounce him for evermore." 
Then, like an overcharged bosom, 
upgathered in a sob, the swelling 
dome of the great cathedral gave 
utterance to a sullen, sudden, rever- 
berant note of woe — the death-knell 
of a God — and at the sound, a 
strange hush which was not silence, 
but palpitated, as it were, with the 
pent-up breathing and tumultuous 
heart-beating of a multitude, fell upon 
the assembly. And he who stood at 
the altar reached forward, and took, 
from its place over the table of God, 
the image of the crucified Christ, and, 
turning to the people, he held it up- 



Proem 25 

raised for a moment before them. 
Then crying out, " The Reign of the 
Christ is at end. The One God 
reigneth, and is worshipped ever- 
more/' he dashed it down into atoms 
on the marble pavement at his feet. 
And out in the sunlight the cannon 
thundered ; and from a hundred 
steeples the bells of Rome burst 
forth merrily into song, that all men 
might know that the Religion of 
Sorrow was ended ; the Reign of 
Joy was begun. 



THE CHILD, THE WISE MAN, 
AND THE DEVIL 

IN my dream I looked down upon 
the world, and I saw that the 
world was in darkness, save for one 
great light, which streamed from an 
upraised Cross. And I saw that the 
glory which shone from the Cross 
made manifest the very heaven of 
heavens, so that even while men trod 
the dark and thorny ways of the 
world, they might at any time look 
up, and see above them the loving 
Father — Face of God. 



2 8 The Child^ the Wise Man^ 

And some I saw who, lighting little 
candles of their own making at the 
great light of the Cross, cried out, 
" Come, see the light I have found ! 
Here is light, compared to which all 
other lights are as darkness ! '' 

Others said, " See how light it is ! 
This is the light of day. Why stands 
yonder Cross in the sunlight to throw 
its gloomy shadow over the world ? 
Come, let us pull it down, that we 
may be no longer saddened by the 
symbol of eternal sorrow." 

And as they so spoke, the light 
from the Cross suddenly faded out, 
and with it, all the little lights that had 
been kindled at its fire, leaving the 
world in darkness utter and complete. 



And the Devil 29 

And I heard the voice of God, 
saying : " Lo, I have given unto 
mankind the most precious gift I 
had to bestow ! 

" The creature can at no time be 
equal with its Creator, and as man 
may not become God — God, out 
of the great love He bore the world, 
was willing to become man. Where- 
fore the High and Holy One who 
inhabiteth eternity, did, for man's 
sake, humble Himself to become a 
helpless babe — to live man's life, 
to share man's sorrow, and to die 
man's death, that henceforth, for 
every man, life might lose its loneli-' 
ness and death its horror ; for God 
was become not only man's Maker 



30 The Child, the Wise Man, 

and Judge^ but also man*s Divine 
Comrade and Brother. 

" And now in these latter days, 
this divinest of all gifts — this Sacri- 
fice of Himself by the Creator for 
the sake of His creature — is by that 
creature rejected and scorned. The 
most sacred and solemn of all mys- 
teries is become a thing of which 
men make mock^ denying — because 
of the very Humanity which for their 
sakes He had stooped to share 
— the Divinity which was His 
ere He had called Humanity into 
being. 

" They speak of their Risen and 
Ascended Saviour as a dead dreamer, 
or a vain deceiver, declaring that Chris- 



And the Devil 31 

tianity is an outworn creed, a thing 
of yesterday, and the story of the 
Divine Man a fable fit only for the 
ears of a child." 

And God spake again, saying, — 
" O faithless and godless genera- 
tion ! O mockers of good and 
workers of iniquity ! have I not 
already borne with you over-long ? 
Day by day have I stood knocking 
at your door, entreating you to accept 
a gift, which, were it not offered freely 
ye would count life itself well spent 
to win. And day by day ye have 
thrust Me out and driven me forth 
— as ye would thrust away a thief or 
beggar from your door. 

" But now, behold ! I come to you 



32 The Childy the Wise Man^ 

no more. Ye — at whose door your 
God and Saviour hath stood so long 
entreating entrance vainly — shall 
knock unheeded at the Door of Life. 
Out of your own mouth shall pro- 
ceed your judgment. Ye have said 
that there is no Christ, that He who 
came to bear away the sin of the 
world, and, by His glorious resurrec- 
tion from the dead, to bring unto all 
men the gift of eternal life, was either 
deluded, or a deluder, who lies, and 
hath lain these nineteen hundred years, 
in His unknown and unhonoured 
grave in Palestine. That is what ye 
have said, and by your own words 
shall come vour condemnation. / who 
gave can take away. I who made can 



And the 'Devil ^^i^ 

unmake. Let he. It is as ye say. 
There is no Christ^ 

And as God so spoke, it seemed 
to me that He wiped out — as a 
child wipes out an unworked sum 
from his slate — all that the great 
name of Jesus means and has meant 
to humanity. For one instant I saw, 
shining down the dark vista of the 
ages, the Supreme Figure of the 
Divine Man. Below me, as on a mid- 
night plain that stretched away into 
infinite darkness, lay the wounded in 
life's battle — the widowed, the 
orphaned, the friendless, the sick, the 
halt, and the sin-bound. And I saw 
that it was to this one Divine and 

shining Figure, the very Light of the 
3 



34 The Child ^ the Wise Man^ 

Worlds that all hands were upHfted, 
— upon which every eye was fixed. 
I saw the Christ look down upon 
His suffering creatures with eyes 
from which streamed tears of tender 
and pitying love. I heard the great 
and yearning cry which rose to His 
lips at sight of their sorrows ; I saw 
Him stretch forth His arms to them 
as a mother stretches forth her arms 
to her stricken child ; and then — 
the sublime and lonely Figure of 
the Man of Sorrows fided out for- 
ever, and upon helpless, hopeless, 
sin-stained, and suffering humanity, 
darkness and despair descended, like 
vultures descending upon their prey. 



And the Devil 35 

Yet again I dreamed a dream in 
which pictures came and went as in a 
glass. 

I looked down upon a Christless 
world, and I saw that though the 
same sun made glad the morning, 
the same stars made beautiful the 
night, the men and women who 
dwelt thereon were become haggard, 
restless, and unhappy. Some few 
there were who sat together, laughing 
feverishly, but there was no mirth in 
their laughter, for their faces were 
anxious and perturbed, and even 
while they laughed they cast uneasy 
glances about them, as if fearing to 
be surprised by an unseen foe. And 
I saw that they who had protested 



^6 The Child^ the Wise Man, 

that the bread and wine of the 
Gospel was a mouthful too difficult 
to swallow, ate greedily of strange 
meats which came from other altars, 
or which were prepared for them by 
the hands of the high-priests of a 
new philosophy. They who declared 
that reason would not allow them to 
believe that God could once become 
Incarnate, saw no reason to doubt 
the manifold Re-Incarnation of Man. 
They who complained that they 
found the straight and level highway 
of Christianity too difficult a road 
for them to follow, or that there was 
no sure foothold therein, were con- 
tent to lose themselves among the 
mazes of Superstition, or to flounder 



And the Devil 37 

and stumble among the stony wastes 
of Unbelief. And many I saw who 
wandered backward and forward aim- 
lessly, as if seeking for something 
which they found not. And ever 
and anon one would cry out, " Lo, 
I have it ! " and the others would 
cease their search, and run with glad- 
ness to hear him. But so often as 
one thus called out, so often would 
they who ran return whence they 
came, unsatisfied and unfilled, until 
not a few ceased to give ear at 
all. 

Then said I to one who passed by, 
" For what seek ye ? " 

" For the answer to the Riddle of 
Life," he replied. 



3 8 The Child, the Wise Man, 

And I said, " Why troublest thou 
thyself about things which are too 
great for thee ? Do as others do. 
Eat, drink, marry, beget children, 
and be merry. Thou needest not to 
know the answer to the riddle till 
the day come when thou must go 
behind the great Dark to seek it for 
thyself. But that day is as yet far 
distant, for thy years are not many, 
and haply thou hast still a long time 
to hve." 

Then the man made answer : 
" What matters it to the mote in 
the Sunbeam, whether it be a minute 
or a moment drifting across the ray 
from dark to dark \ But that which 
troubles me, and gives me no rest 



And the Devil 39 

till I have read life's riddle aright, 
is not the question of what is to be- 
fall me personally hereafter. Were 
I but the mote in the Sunbeam to 
which I have likened myself, I would 
fearlessly and manfully face whatever 
the future hath for me of good or 
ill. But I have a v/ife whom I love, 
a child that I worship ; and the 
thought that one day- — any day — 
death may part us, never, perhaps, 
to set eyes on one another again, 
haunts me, holds me, and makes 
my life a very hell. 'Twere horror 
enough to lose a dear one, even 
were we sure that those who love 
each other here shall hereafter love 
each other, and be together again. 



40 The Child^ the Wise Man^ 

But even that much of certainty has 
been denied us, for Death slams 
in the face of the living the door 
through which he has hurried the 
beloved dead." 

Then said I, " Thou, and those 
thou lovest, are, at least — whether 
living or dead — in the hand of 
God/' 

" What know ye of God ? " asked 
the man. 

And I made answer, " That He 
is Great.'' 

" So great that He careth not for 
me or mine," said the man bitterly. 
" Who am I that God should trou- 
ble Himself concerning me ? Why 
should I, who am but one among 



And the Devil 41 

many millions of men whom He 
hath made, be of more account to 
Him than one egg in the belly of 
the herring, which He hath made 
also ? If the egg become a fish, it 
is well ; if it be destroyed or de- 
voured, it is well equally. So, too, 
with the man. God hath set the sun 
in the sky to warm him by day, the 
moon and stars to companion him 
by night. God says to him, ^ I have 
done my part. Go forth, now, to 
fare for thyself, — to sorrow or to 
be glad, to be hungry or to be full, 
to be sick or to be strong, to live 
or to die, as may chance with 
thee.' " 

Then said I, " Nay, One who 



42 The Childy the Wise Man^ 

cannot lie^ hath told us that the very- 
hairs of our head are numbered, and 
that not a sparrow shall fall and be 
forgotten before the Father." 

" Whom mean ye ? " asked the 
man. 

And I made answer, " The Christ 
of God." 

Then said the man, sadly, " Christ ! 
There is no Christ. Would God 
there were ! Until I ceased to 
believe in the Christ, I realized not 
that, except through Him, we know 
no more of the Ruler of the Uni- 
verse than did he who of all com- 
plained, ^ Canst thou by searching, 
find out God ? ' Except God re- 
veal Himself to man, man knows 



And the Devil 43 

not what God is, or whether God 
be at all. Once I believed that 
God had so revealed Himself, and 
then this earth was the ante-cham- 
ber to Heaven. Now it is but a 
prison, whence there is no escape 
— a prison in which we are held 
captive at the will of an Unknown 
Gaoler. What matters it to me 
that the earth be beautiful ? What 
matters it to the prisoner that 
his cell be painted, when he knows 
that the bony hand of Death, the 
executioner, may, at any moment, 
drag him forth from the dear com- 
panionship of his loved ones, and 
hustle him and them away to an 
unknown fate ? While I believed 



44 T^he Child^ the Wise Man, 

that God had so revealed Himself, 
every soul was sacred to me. We 
were members of one Divine Family. 
We were brothers and sisters in our 
Brother, Lord, and Redeemer. 
Now we are but fellow-victims who 
are flung to life's lions together in 
the same arena. Then, our very 
bereavements were sanctified to us. 
Sorrow was God's accolade. It was 
the sword-stroke which bade us 
arise up God's knights, ready ever 
to draw sword in His service. Now, 
we have no such call to nobility, for 
each one liveth to himself We are 
no longer knights, banded together 
in a noble cause, but units in a mob, 
scrambling and fighting, each with the 



I 



And the 'Devil 45 

other, for the trinkets which are tossed 
to us by our capricious mistress, Fate. 
When I beheved that God Himself 
had stooped to share our joys and 
sorrows, human Hfe was made ever- 
more beautiful and divine. Then, 
the very earth beneath our feet was 
sacred, since He had trodden it ; 
then, was this robe of flesh, which 
He had worn, a white garment which, 
for His dear sake, we must keep un- 
spotted from the world. Then, did 
Art and Song, picture and poem, 
sunrise and sunset, and the play of 
evening light upon the sea, combine 
in one divine conspiracy to urge us 
heavenward ; then, not a flower in 
the field, not a face in the street, but 



4-6 The Child^ the Wise Man, 

called us to a higher and holier 
life. But now our life ! — but what 
matters our life ? If Christ be not; 
if God be not as Christ pictured 
Him " — 

I heard no more, for the man had 
passed on to seek elsewhere the answer 
to the Riddle of Life. 

In my dream I beheld yet another 
picture of the Christless world. 

A woman lay dying in a garret, and 
to her came one who was very wise, 
saying : " Thou hast sent for me, be- 
cause thou wouldst have word with 
me ere thou diest. If thou know- 
est aught which concerns me, or if 
there is any matter upon which I can 



And the Devil 47 

advise thee, speak now, and I will 
give heedo" 

And the woman said : " I was but 
a girl — vain and foolish, perhaps, 
but with no thought of evil, when 
evil befell me. I have done evil 
since, and by mine own choosing, 
but God, who is my judge, knows 
that I fell into that first folly, scarce 
knowing what I did, save that I 
trusted him to whom my heart was 
given. But evil is like the sea, and 
hath no pity on the foolish or the 
ignorant. Just as deep water sucks 
under and swallows up the child who 
has fallen into it accidentally, while 
it bears harmlessly upon its bosom, 
the man who has learnt to swim, so 



48 The Childy the Wise Man^ 

the young man or maiden who ven- 
tures into evil ignorantly is swallowed 
up and drawn under, while others, 
who seek vice deUberately, may at least 
evade — if only by their very knowl- 
edge of evil — the outward penalty 
of their sin. I slipt into sin unthink- 
ingly, as a child might slip from an 
unguarded place into deep water ; 
and my sin was like the dead weight 
of wet clothes about the drowning 
child, dragging me down and down, 
till the waters closed over my head. 
Some at whose door I knocked, when 
I set out to seek the work which 
should keep my baby and myself 
in bread, drew back their skirts, as if 
my very touch were contamination, 



And the Devil 49 

and bade me begone for a wanton. 
Others spoke kindly and pitifully, and 
would have sent me to a ' Home ; ' 
but I shrank from the thought of 
such shelter and such associates as 
the starving pauper shrinks from the 
thought of the workhouse ; and I told 
them that it was work, not charity, 
v/hich I needed, and that if they 
would but give me employment, they 
should find me a faithful servant and 
true. But they shook their heads, 
and said it was sad, very sad, and 
they were sorry. This one excused 
herself because she feared to seem to 
encourage immorality ; a second hesi- 
tated to receive me into her household 

lest she should give offence to those 
4 



50 T'he Child^ the Wise Man^ 

who were already serving her. Others 
spoke uneasily of ^ brothers ' or 
^ sons ; ' and, though many pitied 
me ; and some offered me money, 
each was anxious to pass me on. 

" It seemed to me then, in my 
despair, as if all women were either 
heartless or cowardly, and all men 
vile ; and — since that which I had 
lost could never be regained — I 
asked myself of what use was it 
to continue the hopeless struggle, 
and whether it were worse to go 
clad in a garment of vice than to 
slink from door to door, scarce 
covered by the rags of what had 
once been virtue. 

*^ I need not tell you the familiar 



And the Devil 51 

story. Let me hasten on to say 
that while I was leading a life of 
shame, with no hope in this world 
or in the next, I met with an accident 
in the street, and was carried to a 
hospital, where, while I was recover- 
ing, the good Sister who tended me 
talked much and lovingly of the 
Christ." 

" 'T is ever so with these Chris- 
tians," said the Wise Man, interrupting 
her. " A sick woman is sent to them 
to be healed in the body, and they 
let slip no opportunity of seeking 
to entice her away to follow after 
superstitions." 

Then said the woman : " How 
comes it, then, that ye who deny the 



52 The Child ^ the V/ise Man^ 

Christ have built no hospital of your 
own to which to send your sick ? " 

But the Wise Man made no answer. 

Then said the w^oman^ turning on 
him, fiercely : " What have you to 
give me, in return for the faith which 
you have taken from me ? 

" Is there any hope for such as 
I, save in the Cross of Christ ? I 
was despised of all — a thing of shame 
at which the very children in the 
street — old, alas! in the knowledge 
of evil — pointed the finger of scorn ; 
and OxE came to me, speaking me 
tenderly and lovingly, and greeting 
me - — the outcast — with such greet- 
ing as is accorded to good women. 
He came to me in my despair to 



1 



And the Devil 53 

bring me hope ; He came to me 
in my degradation to bring me back 
my self-respect. And when I said, 
^ Lord, it is too late. I have sinned 
away the very soul of me, and can 
never be pure again/ He made 
answer, ' Believe it not, daughter. 
'T is devils' doctrine, even though 
they teach it thee in my name. 
Thou canst never regain thine inno- 
cence, for innocence — which is often 
but another name for ignorance — 
is a flower which once plucked, a 
vase which once broken, can never 
be the same again. But purity is 
a white star in the heavens which 
maketh pure the soul of all who 
set their eyes thereon with longing. 



54 T^he Childy the Wise Man^ 

It may seem to thee sometimes as 
if thou hadst lost it, but if thou 
wilt walk with upturned eyes ; if 
thou wilt forsake the misty marsh- 
land for the mountain-top and 
the presence of God, then shalt 
thou see its light clear — shining 
through the cloud behind which, 
it may be, the High and Holy 
One has but seemed to hide it, so 
that thou mayest learn to love it 
the more.' 

" Then said I, ' Yea, Lord, but 
though I have striven — oh ! so de- 
spairingly — to clamber out of the 
black and seething abyss into which 
I have fallen, the burden of my sin 
is a clog around my neck to drag 



And the Devil 55 

me back and down to deeper 
depths.' 

" But He made answer, ^ Even now 
I lift the burden from thy shoulder 
to mine. That thou mayest be freed 
from thy sins, and from the conse- 
quences of thy sins, I bear and 
have borne the burden of Eternal 
Sorrow.' 

"And I said, 'Yea, Lord. Yet 
can I never undo the past. The 
soul of me is black, and corrupt, 
and foul, as with leprosy ; and not 
all the water of the world can wash 
me clean again.' 

" But He made answer, ' Thou 
canst never undo the past, but / 
can, and will. And though thy soul 



^6 The Child ^ the Wise Mariy 

be as black as thou sayest, I can 
make it whiter than the new-fallen 
snow/ 

" And I said, ' Yea, Lord, but I 
am weak — weaker and more un- 
stable than water. Not once, but 
ten thousand times, have I risen from 
the mire, and striven, with all the 
strength that was in me, to walk 
without stumbling. And not once, 
but ten thousand times, have I found 
myself low-grovelling in the mire 
again. And now I have neither 
heart nor hope to continue the un- 
equal contest. The sins that I have 
committed in the past, those sins 
shall I go on committing to my 
life's end, for I know myself too 



And the Devil 57 

well not to know my own inability 
to resist sin.' 

" And He made answer, ^ Though 
thy stumblings were twenty times ten 
thousand, yet so long as thou wilt but 
arise after each fall, so long will I 
have for thee in my heart an especial 
tenderness. And if thou wilt but come 
to me, saying, " Lord, I bring to thee 
my sin, and I bring to thee, too, 
my inability to resist my sin. Help 
thou me, for in myself there is no 
help," then will I abide with thee 
by day and by night, then will I 
fight with thee and for thee, until 
my strength has made thee strong, 
and thou hast learned to loathe 
the sins which now thou lovest, and 



58 The Child^ the Wise Man^ 

so shall come to conquer them for 
thyself.' " 

Then said the Wise Man, " And 
didst thou believe all this ? " 

And the woman made answer, " I 
did/' 

" Thou wert easily comforted/' said 
he. "But what hath all this to do 
with me ? " 

" Thou shalt hear/' replied the 
woman. " This, of which I have 
told thee, happened many years ago ; 
and from that day to this, I turned 
my back on my old life. At first, I 
and my babe were like to starve, but 
at last I found honest work for my 
hand to do, and at that I toiled 
diligently, seeking to make amends 



And the Devil 59 

for the past, and to follow after Him 
who had done such wondrous things 
for me. But not long since there 
came upon me a great temptation. 
The man for whose sake I had first 
sinned, the man whom I had never 
ceased to love — as women (God help 
them !) sometimes love the men whom 
they have most cause to hate — 
found me out, and told me that he 
had loved me always, and had long 
ago sought for me to make me his 
wife. He said that the woman whom 
he had at last married, when he gave 
up all hope of finding me, was his 
wife in name only. He said that if I 
would but come to him — I and our 
child, for he had no other child of his 



6o The Child ^ the Wise Man^ 

own^ — he would make the child's fu- 
ture his care, and he would watch over 
us and work for us to his life's end." 

" And what didst thou r " asked 
the Wise Man. 

''- I left him^ and fled with my child 
where he could no longer find us. 
Ohj but mv heart cried out for him, 
and for his love, day and night, for I 
loved him and love him now with my 
whole being, and but for the fact that 
I could not so sin against the com- 
mand of the Christ my Saviour, I 
had cast my scruples to the wind, and 
gone to the man I loved. And then 
it was, at this supreme crisis in mv 
lite, when all my world was unsettled, 
and when I most needed help and 



And the Devil 6i 

strength from without, that your 
book, in which you seek to destroy 
men's faith in the Christ, was put 
into my hand. My heart told me 
that its teaching was false, but it is 
easy to believe the thing we wish to 
believe ; and so it came about that I 
tried to persuade myself that your 
arguments were unanswerable, and to 
persuade myself, also, that my faith 
was shaken, and that, as I no longer 
believed in the Christ, I need no 
longer count myself subject to His 
command. It is thus that we men 
and women palter with our conscience, 
declaring that our life is the outcome 
of our creed, whereas our creed is, 
too often, the outcome of our life. I 



62 The Child ^ the Wise Matty 

need tell thee no more, except that I 
was saved from the sin I would have 
committed by the death of him for 
love of whom I would have again 
sinned. But from the man or woman 
who has played false with conscience, 
a dreadful reckoning is ever exacted. 
I strangled the voice of God within 
me, as a woman strangles the cry in 
the throat of the child, whose voice, 
were it heard, would make known her 
shame. And now, though I would 
believe again, I cannot, for the heart 
of me is dead, and I have sent for 
thee, — thou who art so wise, — to 
ask thee what thou hast to give me, 
— a dying woman, — in place of the 
faith I have lost.'* 






And the Devil 63 

But the Wise Man was silent, and 

when next I looked he was gone, 

and the woman lay dead. 

• • • • • • 

Once more, in my dream, I be- 
held, as in a glass, a picture of the 
Christless world. 

A strong man, the working of 
whose face was terrible to behold, 
stood, in impotent anguish, looking 
down upon the death-throes of his 
only child. 

The httle figure which had been 
wont to leap with joy at sight of 
him ; that he had many times 
caught up (oh ! so tenderly !) to 
toss at arm's length aloft, or to 
carry bundle-wise in his arms, that 



64 The Child, the Wise Man, 
he and she might be the first to 
welcome the new rose, just opened 
in the garden, lay with her limbs 
drawn up— like the claws of a dead 
bird — to her body. 

The shining curls, yellow as fine 
spun flax, soft as thistle-down, were 
damp and dull with the dews of 
death. And oh ! the poor, pinched, 
suffering little face that had so often 
lain against his! Oh! the grey 
shadows around the eyes which had 
looked sometimes into his eyes, as 
if they saw down into his soul, as 
over the brink of a well, — as if that 
litde child had been God's Sentry, 
set to guard the gates of the King- 
dom of the Pure. How often before 



I 



And the Devil 6^ 

the challenging, " Stand and make 
answer!" of those eyes, — the ques- 
tioning, "Thus am I. Say, now, 
what art thou ? " had his own eyes 
fallen ? 

And now he must stand by with 
idle, helpless hands, while the fingers 
of an invisible enemy are, minute 
by minute, strangling the life-breath 
in that little throat. 

She is gone. He is childless. 
The baby Hfe, to have saved which 
he would have laid down his own 
life gladly, is at end. The little 
soul, which was dearer to him than 
his own soul's hope of immortality, 
is fled. And as the terrible realisa- 
tion of his loss comes over him. 



66 The Child ^ the Wise Man^ 

the old faith of his childhood re- 
asserts itself for one moment, and, 
falling upon his knees, the stricken 
father-heart cries out in his an- 
guish, — 

" Lord Jesus, lover of Httle chil- 
dren, take Thou my little maid. If 
she is with Thee, all is well. Guard 
her, dear Lord, till I come to Thee 
for her." 

And then he remembers that there 
is no Jesus, — it may be even that 
there is no God, and that he knows 
no more of what has become of that 
little life, which owed its being to 
his life, than he knows of the bubble 
that bursts with the breaking wave. 
And despair takes him. 



And the Devil 67 

But in Heaven I saw the Divine 
Figure of the Man of Sorrows ; and 
lo ! on His bosom lay the Httle child. 
And, looking down with streaming 
eyes upon the childless father, the 
Christ spake as He spoke in the 
days when He walked the fields of 
Palestine, saying : " Oh ! my people ! 
my people that I have carried in 
my heart as a mother carries her 
unborn babe beneath her bosom. 
O brother ! O sister ! at sight of 
whose sorrow this soul of mine has 
cried out with a more terrible ci;y 
than ever thou hast uttered for a 
sight of the loved faces thou hast 
lost ! How often would I have 
comforted thee ! How often would 



68 The Child^ the Wise Matiy 

I have gathered thee to my breast, 
as now I gather this httle one, — 
and thou wouldst not ! Yet, though 
thou wilt not bear my Cross, I may 
and will forever bear thine^ even as 
I bear away from thee the burden 
of all thy sins. And though thou 
hast forsaken and denied me utterly, 
yet will I never forsake thee to all 
Eternity ! " 

• • o o • • 

And on earth the Wise Men sat 
and smiled to think how wise they 
were, and that, by their wisdom, 
they had for ever destroyed the Re- 
ligion of Sorrow. 



And the Devil 6g 

And in the Kingdom of darkness 
Satan sat smiling to himself and at 
them ; for though he knew that he 
was very wise, he knew that many 
a little child was wiser than himself 
or than they. 



THE END. 



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